the essential
A bodybuilder from avenue Raymond-Naves, in Toulouse, has taken the matter to the commercial court to denounce what he considers to be “blackmail” from an automobile expertise firm, which asked him to lower his prices to please to insurance companies under penalty of no longer sending them customers. A report from a legal expert confirms the abuses of an opaque system.
It is the fight of David against Goliath. In his family body shop on Avenue Raymond Naves, in Toulouse, Max Barros is at the end of his rope. Undermined by nearly 4 years of a standoff engaged with the Expertise et Concept firm, based in Saint-Jean, which brought his garage to the brink of bankruptcy. “I am the victim of blackmail, racketeering and fraud in the logic of a system to which everyone turns a blind eye, including the State services and the repression of fraud,” explains, with tears in his eyes. eyes, this exemplary professional. His ordeal began after the Covid crisis when one of the expertise firms with which he had worked for a long time offered him a “partnership”, at the end of which he would lower the prices of his repairs to a preferential rate, in exchange for an acceleration of the processing of its clients’ claims files.
The reduction in hourly rates
The answer is clear, no! Question of principle.” Our garage is over 60 years old with a very good clientele and I have always refused the framework of insurance approval, specifies Max Barros, because I consider that it is a vicious circle in which insurers systematically seek to reduce reimbursement costs with bodybuilders who end up neglecting the work to make up for it on commissions.” But despite his refusal to enter into what he calls “a scheme”, the mechanic realizes that certain repair invoices are reduced by the Expertise et Concept firm (1). Anomalies confirmed by the expert report of the commercial court seized by Max Barros and his lawyer Jean Iglésis and delivered in recent days. The rapporteur notes that the hourly rate adopted is systematically revised downwards. When the mechanic displays €82 then €92 excluding tax for bodywork work, the Saint-Jean firm applies a price of €60…
Until the suicide attempt…
“They impose forfeits, which is strictly prohibited in our profession, if I give in, I am dead,” protests Max Barros who soon pays dearly for his resistance. “The expertise and concept firm blocked my files, then forced my clients to go directly through their offices, then diverting them to other bodyworks and cheating me with the insurance companies.” As a result, his turnover plummets, his son is made redundant and his garage is in danger. Max Barros filed a complaint with the police and the gendarmerie and contacted the delegation for the repression of fraud. but nothing happened. The bodybuilder is betting everything on the procedure before the commercial court to recover part of its financial loss. “This year, I lost €150,000 net,” he assures. His lawyer, Jean Iglésis, insists on the human consequences of a system put in place by insurance companies and expert firms to bring mechanics into line. “Those who refuse, they break them, and the case of the Barros bodywork is not unique. We have half a dozen examples.” A pressure that can lead to the worst. In Fontenilles, a bankrupt bodybuilder recently attempted suicide. A merciless world that the average policyholder in need of repairing their vehicle is far from suspecting.
